Interplay's Battle Chess (ambigious freeware)

Well, I remembered someone posted a note on Lost Classics Project just
the other day ... so, I sent a note to Interplay.
And I had this reply coming back from Interplay:
"Hi Willie,
Wow, that's from a long time back. It's possible that it was released
as Freeware, but unlikely. More likely, that was written by a pirate,
especially the part on how to bypass the copy protection. We probably
would have been able to completely remove the copy protection instead
of bypassing it like they way it's described.
I actually worked at Interplay around that time frame, and did some
minor grunt work on Battle Chess II, and cannot recall the Battle
Chess being released as freeware. My memory may be bad, however.
We still sell Battle Chess, too:
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/battle_chess_special_edition
I did some asking, and there is no way for us to confirm that
Interplay did this way back when, unfortunately.
Sorry, probably not the answer you were hoping for. Thanks for
writing!
Sincerely,
-Interplay"
So, all I can say is, even though it may have been possibly been
released as freeware, it was too long ago for anyone to remember in
Interplay, and it can't be denied or confirmed at the moment :(
Thanks for the direction though.
Willie